Forest and Strea 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1908. 
VOL. LXXI.—No. 17. 
No. 127 Franklin St., New York- 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1908, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary. 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer. 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1S73. 
A FAMOUS FISHING CASE. 
Once again has the famous Percy Summer 
Club case been brought to public attention. 
The club lost in its suit against the people of 
* New Hampshire, heard in the United States 
Circuit Court, and the latest decision is that of 
the United States Court of Appeals, which has 
just denied a rehearing of the case. 
In 1882 the Percy Summer Club was in¬ 
corporated under the laws of New Hampshire. 
Its membership was limited to a few men, 
principally New Yorkers. They acquired 350 
acres of land and water at Percy, N. H., and 
established a private preserve for fishing and 
recreation. The water was a lake known as 
North Pond or Potter’s Pond; the club renamed 
it Lake Christine. The land enclosed the lake 
and its feeder and outlet. The public was ex¬ 
cluded. 
The laws of the State at that time permitted 
the private reservation of waters devoted to 
fish propagation, but later a law was enacted 
making all bodies of water of twenty acres and 
more public property. 
The people of Coos county had always fished 
in North Pond, and they continued to fish in 
it. Litigation followed thick and fast for a 
number of years, and the club lost in every 
court in the State. It then transferred its 
1 property to a corporation formed in New 
Jersey, and brought suit against trespassers in 
I the Federal courts. Finally the State assumed 
the defense of trespassers, who, up to that time, 
had defended their own suits. 
Christine Lake was noted for its excellent 
I trout fishing. It is high up in the hills, the 
water is cold, and as the fish seldom exceed 
a pound in weight, the members employed flies 
and light rods only. A limit of forty was re¬ 
quired. Of the original membership only a few 
are now living. 
The fight has been a stubborn one of many 
phases. The cost to the club has exceeded the 
1 , value of the property, while many local anglers, 
( who insisted on what they believed were their 
rights, paid dearly in the defense of those 
" principles until the State assumed charge of the 
j case. 
DOG LICENSES. 
By legislative enactment the American Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has 
enjoyed, for many years past, unusual and arbi¬ 
trary powers in respect to canine matters in New 
York. 
When these powers were first granted, the 
New York Legislature gave them on the strength 
of representations as to the beneficence and 
efficiency of the society’s work. But when the 
practice of humane helping becomes a cor¬ 
porate asset instead of a matter of individual 
sentiment, revenue appears to tend to dominate 
the corporate mission. In much of the down 
town section of New York it is now a rare sight 
to see an S. P. C. A. officer, and any day, almost 
any hour, one can witness brutality and in¬ 
humanity in the way of overloaded horses, 
horses inadequately shod for heavy draft work, 
crippled horses which should not work at all, 
and teamsters who yank and whip the animals 
in their charge in a most merciless and brutal 
manner, unreproved and unchecked. 
The dog-owning public has always been hostile 
to the S. P. C. A., chiefly because as a corpora¬ 
tion it has exercised what many believe are un¬ 
constitutional powers, it being a kind of empire 
within an empire. 
This hostility has found expression in much 
litigation, and in the evading of payment of the 
license fee. For the moneys paid in, the society 
assumed no material legal responsibility to the 
public. Irresponsibility always begets inefficiency, 
and, had it any other asset and mission than 
what is embodied in the name of humanity, its 
privileges in all probability would have been long 
since revoked. By restraints on all other bodies 
and individuals, it has acquired nearly a monoply 
in its field. 
The latest litigation on the constitutional point 
as to whether the society can legally exercise the 
functions of license collector is between the so¬ 
ciety and Borough President Bird S. Coler, of 
Brooklyn, a summary of which is presented this 
week in our columns elsewhere. 
Sportsmen in Connecticut and elsewhere will 
do well to heed the words of caution printed 
recently over the signature of Wilbur F. Smith, 
fish and game warden of Fairfield county, Con¬ 
necticut. We are all too much disposed to take 
optimistic views of the conditions of our game 
covers and to feel that the few birds that we 
shall kill will not affect the general supply, but 
as has been so often pointed out in Forest and 
Stream, the supply of ruffed grouse in the East¬ 
ern States is approaching terribly close to the 
vanishing point. 
It will be well for each one of us to content 
himself with very few shots this autumn at this 
splendid game bird, or better still with no shots 
at all. It will be much wiser to go out without 
a gun, to scour the woods, to find the birds and 
to let the dogs get a few points, but not to kill 
anything. A little self-control practiced now 
may help us greatly next season. 
R 
As we go to press the reports of disastrous 
forest and brush fires are increasing at an 
alarming rate. No section of the North and 
East seems to be free of some fires, and on 
Monday of this week the sun was barely visible 
through the dense haze, which was later on 
blown out to sea. In the northern part of 
Michigan a number of lives have been lost. 
Pennsylvania and New York are the greatest 
sufferers from fires and drouth just now, but 
from Maine to the Ohio River the woods are 
burning. In the Adirondack Park the situation 
is very bad, as the fires are spreading in all di¬ 
rections, under as well as on the surface. 
R 
Two unconfirmed press dispatches from the 
West this week convey the news of the death 
of well-known men. One of these states that 
James Oliver Curwood, the author, was killed 
by Indians at Lac la Rouge, near Moose 
Factory, Canada. The other one comes from 
Missoula, Mont., and says that Deputy Game 
Warden C. B. Peyton and four Flathead Indians 
are dead as the result of a fight following an 
attempt by Wardens Peyton and Herman 
Rudolph to arrest the Indians for violations of 
the game laws. 
R 
Our cover picture this week is the result of 
early rising and much patience on the part of 
Townsend Lawrence. While he was in the 
Tobique region of New Brunswick not long 
ago he secured several exposures on moose, 
but this required ten days’ watching and wait¬ 
ing around the lake shores morning and 
evening. The bull illustrated was a big fellow 
whose antlers were still in the velvet. The click 
of the shutter during the first exposure startled 
the bull, but he stopped at a call and was 
photographed a second time. 
R 
Sportsmen returning from vacation trips to 
the forests of the East and North are loud in 
their praises of the ideal autumn days found 
there. Despite the long drouth which has 
worked hardship everywhere, there is no deny¬ 
ing the fact that the calm, hazy days act as a 
tonic on men who, worn out with toil, are seek¬ 
ing recreation in the woods. 
R 
Recent heavy fines for permitting dogs to run 
at large in the Adirondack Park have shown 
that the protectors are enforcing the law and 
intend to break up the practice. 
